Couper les cheveux en quatre

Idiomatic French Expression

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Meaning	to split hairs, to nit-pick, to quibble
Literally	to cut the hair in four
Register	normal
Pronunciation		[koo pay lay sheu veu a(n) kahtr]
IPA		[ku pe le ʃø vø ɑ̃ katrə]

Usage notes: Colorful idiomatic expressions often vary wildly from one language to the next, but couper les cheveux en quatre is one of the exceptions. The French and English expressions are very similar: they both dismiss debates over slight differences as cutting/splitting hair. Of course, since "split" means to cut the hair along its length into two pieces, it’s not quite the same as French’s "cut it into four (pieces)," but there’s no need to quibble about it.  🙂

Par exemple…

Arrête de couper les cheveux en quatre !		Stop splitting hairs!
Il ne faut jamais débattre avec Alain – il adore couper les cheveux en quatre.		You should never debate with Alain – he loves nit-picking.

Synonyms

• chercher la petite bête (literally, "to search for the little bug")
• discutailler
• ergoter
• être tatillon
   
  informal
• chercher des poux
• chinoiser
• chipoter
• pinailler
   
  vulgar
• enculer les mouches
    
  formal/literary
• chicaner
• ratiociner

 Related lessons

• Couper conjugations
• Numbers
• Parts of the body
• Register (formal vs informal)

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